1989
CITATION
Mr Chancellor,
One person who should feel almost as much at home in this ceremony as you yourself, sir, is Sir Bruce Watson. Both of you are placed very close to an elegant specimen of your favourite mine, the Mount Isa copper in the University mace.
Sir Bruce's career has been very closely associated with copper and with Mount Isa. When Design Engineer and subsequently Deputy Chief Engineer at Copper Refineries Pty Ltd in Townsville he was a major contributor to substantial improvements in the design and construction of additional plant that greatly extended the capacity of the refinery. In the early 1970s he was Construction Manager at Mount Isa Mines Limited, once again responsible for expansion-this time on a vast scale, even for Mount Isa.
After a period as Group Industrial Relations Manager for MIM: he became General Manager of Agnew Mining Pty Ltd. The Agnew Nickel Project involved the development of a township and plant in a remote and dry area of Western Australia, with all the problems of building roads and providing transport and habitable conditions for a community that had to be almost entirely self-reliant.
Sir Bruce came back to the central operation of MIM as Executive Director in 1977, talcing on the duties of Managing Director in 1980 and succeeding you, Mr Chancellor, as Chairman in 1983.
Sir Bruce has given substantial service to the engineering profession in Australia, the business community, and to education. He is a Councillor of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering; a former President of the Australian Mining Industry Council; and a Council Member of the Australian Management College at Mount Eliza. For these and other services to industry he received a Knighthood in 1985. More recently he has become President oftlie Queensland Art Gallery Foundation, being responsible for the launching of its second public appeal.
We at this University are particularly indebted to him for his service as Chairman of the Board of Management of the Graduate School of Management.
Mr Chancellor, for his distinguished contributions to engineering, business, and education in Queensland and throughout Australia I present to you Sir Bruce Watson, Knight Bachelor, Bachelor of Engineering (Electrical) and Bachelor of Commerce of this University, Member of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, Fellow of the Institution of Engineers, Australia, for conferral of the degree of Doctor of Engineering, honoris causa, to which he has been admitted by the Senate of the University.